Thoughts on Mother’s Day 2008

I’m within two months of my departure on
my 6th Compassion for Animals Road Expedition (CARE-6), which will cover 6
Canadian provinces and 24 U.S. states in 4 months as of June 30, 2008. I’m
beginning to feel anxious, not particularly because of the 30,000 km of
highway ahead, nor the arduous schedule to maintain, nor the enemies I’ll
surely be making at the Alberta tar sands, but that I’ll have to again leave
my mother behind.

My mother was born in 1919, so she’s 89.
She’s very feeble. She used to be 5’3”, now she’s barely 4’6”, and
hunchbacked, and so fragile that I’m sure one small fall and she’d
disintegrate like a delicate Chinese porcelain vase. She has no
life-threatening disease, but is on 6 or 7 different drugs administered at
the Lakeview Care Centre where she is being cared for by a competent and
compassionate staff. Just last week, I asked the nurse, “Just out of
curiosity, what would happen if the drugs are suddenly withdrawn?” She said,
“Her body would probably stop functioning.” And her memory is dimming. She
could still tell me about her childhood in great detail, but just last
month, she called me asking me why I hadn’t seen her for so long, on the
same day I had taken her out to lunch.

Up to now I’ve taken five of these long tours, the longest one covering 42
states in 7 months, with Brenda Davis and her son Cory Davis back in
2003-2004. Every time when I drove away from Vancouver, the thought would
cross my mind that I might have seen my mother for the last time in my life.
Yet, every time, she was always there to welcome me back. And again, I’m
beginning to wonder about the same ting. I hate the feeling, but am haunted
by it.

When I go on the road, I try to call her once every day or two, from city to
city. And I send her some of the photos I’ve taken along the way, and
pictures from the Animal Rights Conference. When I come back to Vancouver
and visit her at Lakeview, I would see the pictures displayed proudly all
over her room.

The staff at the care centre loves her, because she is easy going and always
smiling at them, and would share some of the goodies my brother Matthew
would bring her upon his visits. But she has her moods, and has the
propensity to need to worry about something or in fear of something just to
be sane. And I’m the person she chooses to unload her woes on to. This is
one of the toughest things I have to deal with. As an activist I’ve spend my
life getting rid of my own fears, until some have called me “fearless”, but
then she unloads her fears on to me, and I’m obligated to bear them. I hate
this feeling too, especially if I have to do something I consider totally
unnecessary just so that I could restore her serenity, but again, am haunted
by it. I’m not sure that she realizes what effect this has on me, and from
my point of view at lease, sometimes she seems profoundly selfish.

On the other hand, she could be very considerate of my feelings, especially
on the conscious level (versus the subconscious "selfishness"). Back in
1999, for example, when I went to India for the third time to help save the
Bengal tiger from extinction, my sister had a terrible traffic accident
which resulted in severe brain injury. This happened within the first week
of my 10-week stay at the Kanha and Bandhavgarh tiger reserves (see my book
Omni-Science and the Human Destiny – www.HOPE-CARE.org). When I called my
mother during my resupply trips to town, she never say a word about it.
Afterwards, I asked her why and she said, “I didn’t want to burden you with
something you can’t do anything about.”

Although I know she would love to keep me by her side all the time, she
never once tried to deter me from going on tour, nor even to just guilt-trip
me. She always says that she would pray for my safety and success. But the
way she asks me how long I would be away for, and the way she looks at me
when she says it, breaks my heart every time.

On June 30, I’ll be driving from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Fort
McMurray, Alberta, the town where the tar sands workers live. The last thing
I’ll do in Vancouver will be to say goodbye to my mother. I look forward to
the amazingly scenic drive, but I dread the departure because of this good
bye. And the inevitable question: “Will I see hmy mother again?”

She was born the only child of my maternal grand parents in a small town in
the Guang Dong province of China, but had over a dozen cousins. They all
lived in the same extended family complex walled with dragon-back tiles.
They had an inland aquaculture business, a river-barge transportation
system, and my maternal great grand father was the founder and president of
a local bank. They were supposed to be the top-wealth family in town. My mom
was also considered very beautiful, and was therefore the target of many an
amorou$ young man's attention.

Deep-Tsui (Butterfly Green) was free spirited and loved to laugh, and well
loved by all, men and women and old and young alike, and the apple of her
grandparents' and parents' eyes. So, when the Japanese invaded China in
1937, when she was 18, and she was uprooted, her world crashed into chaos
and danger. Village after village was raided, leveled, and villagers
tortured and slaughtered. The Great Nanking Massacre continued for days, the
Yangtze River running red with the blood of 100,000 civilians. One of the
first things the invaders wanted were “comfort women” (sex slaves). My
mother almost became one, and if she did become one, I wouldn’t be here to
write about it.

In 1945, the Japanese were defeated, and life returned to normal for the
next several years, until 1949 came around, when the Communists swept China.
My father was an official in the old government, so we packed up and escaped
by moonlight down the Pearl River to Hong Kong as refugees. Since my
family’s wealth was tied up in real estate, and since we couldn’t take it
with us, the prince (me) became a pauper overnight.

Due to the torrents of refugees pouring from China into the postage-stamped
sized British colony, accommodation as at a premium. Our family of ten (my
parents, my two siblings, my four aunts and uncles, my paternal grandmother
and me) had to be cramped into 3-bedroom apartment on decrepit Temple
Street.

Jobs too were at a premium, and, with his university education, but without
any knowledge of English – the official language – all my father could find
was a sales and bookkeeper’s position in a textile factory. He was paid
peanuts, and had only two-days off per year: Chinese New Year’s Day, and
Christmas Day – the bloodsucking proprietor being a Christian. As for the
other 363 days, he worked easily 12 hours a day. I hardly got to see him,
except early in the morning when he was on his way to work and I was on my
way to school. I was usually already asleep by the time he finally arrived
home from work.

Even working as he did, he still couldn’t bring in enough to keep us fed and
educated, so my mother also went to work at the factory, as a sewing machine
operator, though she would not work in the evening due to her children being
home. I've heard my parents talk, more like fantasize, about starting a
textile factory of their own, but they had always stayed with that small
piece of security at the sweat shop. It was first and foremost for their
three children. They have sacrificed their own career ambitions for their
children’s education and future.

The proof of their sacrifice is definite. As soon as my youngest sibling had
gone on to university, my parents quit their jobs without delay, and started
their own factory, which was absolutely not a sweat shop. A side twist. As
soon as my parents began to get their one factory up to speed, the
bloodsucker contacted all his clients and asked them to boycott my parents’
products. And a bit of karma. His business eventually went into bankruptcy.

When my parents were finally ready to retire, they sold their factory and
immigrated to Vancouver to join me and my brother. In 1999, my father was
86, and he said he might not live to see the new millennium. He did see it,
but for only 7 months. My mother used to say that she dreaded my father
dying more than herself dying, which was a great weight on my shoulders at
that time, but she survived his passing in surprising good spirit, and
showed an independence surpassing my expectations. Unfortunately, but
inevitably, her own condition has since declined. Today, she can hardly walk
without assistance, and can't walk 100' without stopping. I see her about
twice a week usually taking her out to lunch or dinner, and for both her and
me, it was a chore. But we always enjoyed the dinner with a smile.

But now, I'm within two months of yet another long departure. Would it be
our final farewell this time? I’ll say that goodbye when I come to it.
Meanwhile, I have another mother to serve - Mother Earth, who will survive
me, I hope.

She has given birth to our species Homo sapiens, and nurtured us through the
toughest of times, but not only have we milked her dry, we are desecrating
her with every move we make, and choking the life out of her with our own
extravagance, and destroying her future with our myopia, and robbing her
beauty with our greed.

When I was saying goodbye to my mother while departing only CARE-5 last
year, she asked me, “Why you?” I asked her back, “To be your son? Or to
serve Mother Earth?” And she said, “I’ll pray for your safety and your
success.” She will say the same to me on June 30 this year, fully knowing
that she may not see me again.

Truth be told, were I a woman, I would probably choose to not have a child,
and
I share deep concerns about human overpopulation with many colleagues, but
these are exceptional women who bring forth exceptional children who will be
the best future leaders of humanity.

As an animal rights activist, can I bypass the mother seal whose pup is
clubbed before her eyes, and the mother deer whose fawn is caught in a trap,
and the mother whale whose baby has just been harpooned?

Finally, back to our common Mother Earth, whose is now being ravaged by the
Six Planetary Diseases (see www.HOPE-CARE.org), all of human origin I might
add, I ask all to do this one thing, if you haven’t yet. Please sign the
following petition urging the U.N. Secretary General to orchestrate the
creation and administration of a $120 billion/year Global Green Fund by a
corresponding reduction of 10% of the $1.2 trillion world military
expenditure add a strong comment worth a thousand signatures and pass it on
far and wide